


Back to the Start

by thewatsonat221B



Series: To Rebuild Once More [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Post His Last Vow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-13 13:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1228909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewatsonat221B/pseuds/thewatsonat221B
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary's been gone for three weeks, his daughter is starting to settle into routine, both Lestrade and Sherlock have open cases, and John? John is slowly living.</p><p>  <i>“Look, I know you’re concerned about me. But I’m fine. I will be fine. I just need time to sort things out.”</i><br/><i>Harry didn’t look like she believed a word of what John had just said, but nodded all the same.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Harry’s flat was a third floor loft in Chelsea, something she’d first used as a status symbol, but that she was now rather indifferent about. Originally purchased with her shiny new job six years earlier, John had been to visit sporadically in the past few years and watched the flat lose some of it’s lustre as more of Harry’s money went to alcohol than its upkeep.

Finally reaching her door, John tapped it with his foot as he resolutely stared straight forward. He felt like an utter knob, standing with a car seat in one hand, a nappy bag in the other, and a plastic bag filled with a box of chocolate hanging off his wrist. He supposed that was his life now, without Mary at his side, leaning against him and taking some of the weight from his hands.

“Hey, Captain.”

Harry’s voice was soft and warm as she stood in the open doorway, and John swallowed roughly because his sister was not normally soft. She was abrasive, headstrong, argumentative, and very emotional, and John wasn’t sure he could handle a softer version of her.

“Is that chocolate?”

Her eyes lit up as she peered down at the bag in her hand, and John snorted out a relieved laugh. Chocolate clearly took precedence over her new niece.

“Yeah. Gonna let me in?”

And Harry stood back, waving her hand at the far too bright sitting room beyond the door. John shortly found himself with a tea as he sat on her couch, ignoring the plates of leftovers on the end table. Harry was ordering takeaway of some sort, and John was giving a very small smile to his daughter. Rose was just waking up, and John knew that once he took her out of the car seat she’d start squawking a little. By the time Harry plunked herself on the couch next to him (with what appeared to be a glass of water, John determined with a two second secretive glance that he’d spent years perfecting), John had fought with the buckles on the car seat and lifted Rosie out. Her little arms were swinging and her feet moving, and her face flushed slightly red as she cried for a few seconds.

“This is Rosie,” John said, carefully handing his daughter over. Harry’s eyes were riveted as she took hold of the wriggling bundle, and she smiled widely at Rose as they inspected each other. John picked up his tea, which was far too hot to drink, but gave him something to do with his hands.

“I can’t really tell who she looks like more,” Harry said, catching Rose’s fingers with one of her own and letting the baby squeeze tightly.

“Mary,” John quietly said. “Well, she looks just like a baby at the moment.”

“Dunno,” Harry said, looking up at John critically, as if she hadn’t spent the last 41 years with him. “She’s got your ears. Thankfully not your nose.”

“Oi,” John humourlessly objected, pausing with his tea mug at his lips. He glared at his sister, but as always, she ignored him.

“Hope she looks more like you, it’d be nice to have a mini-me.”

“For the last time,” John said, putting his mug down and shaking his head. “We are _fraternal_ twins.”

Rose shrieked briefly before yawning again, making John smile. It was fascinating to watch her figure out how parts of her body worked, and John wasn’t ashamed to say he’d spent hours just watching her over the last few weeks.

“Where’d you get the name Rose?” Harry asked, passing her back over to John. “Never pictured you much as a flower man.”

“I’m really not,” John agreed, laying Rose down in his lap, with her head by his knees. Her arms waved around a bit, and he let her grab his fingers.  “She’s named after a famous scientist.”

Harry, who’d moved across the room to unearth something from the pile of clothes on her side table, paused to stare at him.

“Oh my god, you let Holmes name her.”

John rolled his eyes, glad that his sister had never felt the urge to be careful around him, despite whatever turmoil he happened to be going though.

“I didn’t let him do anything. He suggested Rosalind, but I liked Rose.”

“Right,” Harry agreed, slowing pulling up a package wrapped with shiny silver paper. “But I’ll bet it wasn’t on the list of names that you and Mary came up with?”

“Shut up,” John abruptly said, unwilling to justify his choices further. Rose Olivia Alice Watson was the name he’d decided on, and he didn’t want to explain to his sister that he’d not named his daughter after his wife because it would have been weird, and he’d never actually found out what his wife’s real name was.

Harry gave him a _look_ that John studiously ignored, before handing him the small package.

“It’s not the best wrapping job,” Harry defensively said. John didn’t comment that wrapping while drunk usually made things a hell of a lot more difficult.

“Are you moving back to Baker Street?” Harry asked, fiddling with her camera as John pulled apart the paper.

“I have a house,” John said, not answering Harry’s question. “We were going to raise—”

“That’s not what I asked, Captain,” Harry interrupted. Captain was her name for him, which had originally started out as teasing in return for his boasting that he was seven minutes older, but which now meant that he needed to listen to her without question. “You’ve been holed up at home with her, walking around your house and wishing that Mary had never died and that things were how they should have been. And it’s quiet, it’s grey, and it’s dull.”

“It’s mourning,” John roughly said, rubbing with two fingers along Rosie’s chest in an attempt at soothing, more for himself than her. He’d put the present down beside him (something purple was peeking out through the wrapping) because Rose could feel his agitation and was starting to fuss.

“It’s stagnation, and it’s something you’ve never been able to do. You should go back to Baker Street. Back to him.”

John shook his head. “I can’t just…go. Christ, even my therapist knew he was dangerous for me.”

“He absolutely is,” Harry agreed, draining her glass of water. The food would be coming soon, and he knew she’d have a real drink at lunch. “You should go to rehab, but I’m fairly certain the only rehab for Sherlock Holmes is death. And look at how much that fucked you up.”

“Then why on earth would you suggest I go back? I have a baby now, and she’ll need normality,” John argued, though his heart wasn’t in it. His quick-fire temper had been through the wringer in the two weeks since Mary’s death, set off by everything from her slippers on the floor to a forgotten book with a page marked that she’d never return to. He didn’t have anything left for his sister’s argument.

The phone on the table rang, and Harry snatched it up, not looking at the keypad as she jabbed the front door buzzer.

“For the same reason that you only agree to have lunch with me, and never dinner. It’s early enough in the day so you can forget that I’m addicted to alcohol, and yet I’m functional because I’ve had one drink to tide me over and I know there’s more to come later.”

“Harry…” John sighed.

“Open the present John,” Harry ordered, smiling at him with a forced smile. This was the stalemate they always arrived at; the fact hat her addiction would probably kill her one day, and that his almost killed him.

John barely noticed the flash of her camera going off as he pulled a very soft purple lion out of the wrapping paper, holding it up above Rose. Her eyes widened almost comically as she focused on it, and John smiled as he brought it down close enough for her to touch.

Lunch was rather quiet, as John’s patience for discussions about alcohol had long worn thin and Harry preferred to talk to John when he didn’t have anything to distract himself with.

Finally, when she could no longer push the food on her plate around anymore, Harry blurted out her question.

“What have you been doing at home?”

John, well accustomed to Sherlock’s random outbursts, continued to slowly finish his meal. Rose was back in her car seat, and seemed to be content to listen to them.

“Reading. Tidying the house. Watching the baby,” John calmly replied.

“Reading for fun?” Harry prodded, giving him a slightly dubious look.

“Mostly. A few case related things”

“I didn’t realise you had open cases still.”

“Just the one, really,” John said, with a fake smile. The fact that Sherlock’s attempted murder was a five-month-old unsolved case was a supreme irritation to Lestrade and his team, which John was informed of when Lestrade had come to visit the week before. John was already well aware of that, having pilfered a copy of the ballistics report and case file that Sherlock had stashed at Baker Street.

Harry looked like she was working out what to say next, so John held up his hands to stop her.

“Look, I know you’re concerned about me. But I’m fine. I will be fine. I just need time to sort things out.”

Harry didn’t look like she believed a word of what John had just said, but nodded all the same.

“Just don’t be alone too long, Captain,” Harry finally said. “Neither of us are good at that.”

 

…

The only sound permeating through the slightly open sitting room window was that of the town bus running past on the main road a block over. John had originally thought that a house in the suburbs would have been peaceful, relaxing, and an ideal place to raise a child. Mary had agreed, and since he’d found out about her hidden identity, John had yet to figure out if Mary had actually believed that, or if they’d both been playing along with their peaceful suburban family fantasy.

He glanced to his left, where three-week-old Rose was sleeping in a little swing seat, and wondered if she didn’t find the whole place dull as well.

John frowned at the screen in front of him, skimming another article about an unsolved murder from six years previously. A pale and grim face stared back at him; a man in his late forties but looking much older in his booking photo due to a life of crime and rough dealings. Originally arrested for dealing drugs on a very large scale, the last charge had been for attempted kidnapping. The cause of death was the exact same as the rest on John’s scribbled list – single high calibre bullet to the head. Minor powder burns on the skin, so the gun was held at a slight distance, and no other injuries.

So far John’s list matched that of the ballistics report. Seventeen murders within a four-year range, a five year silent gap, and then Sherlock’s shot in the chest.

To the unaware, it looked like the gun had been disposed of and found by someone else, as the MO had changed. To John it looked like sentimental stupidity. He was fond of the gun he’d fought with, yes, but it had been dumped immediately in the Thames after shooting the cabbie on the first night he’d met Sherlock. Sentimentality was one thing, but keeping evidence was plain sloppy.

John blew a gust of air out and closed the laptop. Seventeen separate assassinations and one attempted murder, all done with the same gun that John suspected was in the house somewhere.

Deciding to make a detailed searching plan later, John picked up the papers sitting beside him on the couch and shuffled them uselessly in his hands. Mary had applied for maternity leave during her pregnancy, but now it was John’s turn to fill out the forms and he had yet to find any documentation on what procedure to follow if his wife had died in childbirth. He’d considered a few times whether it would be worth owing a favour to Mycroft to get things sorted out, but every time he was close to deciding, John reminded himself that he was 41 years old and shouldn’t fall back on others to do things for him.

His mobile phone buzzed to life as it announced a new text, and John glanced again to the swing seat as he snatched up the phone. He was fairly certain it was Sherlock, who most certainly did not usually stop at just one text, and the vibration on the table would be loud enough to wake Rose.

_Possible intel on Moriarty video feed. Meet at Baker St in an hour. S_

John sat up straight on the couch, tossing the papers back down on the table. There’d been nothing since the crudely edited image of Moriarty had broadcast itself across the nation, but John knew Moriarty enough to know that that didn’t mean the man wasn’t lying in wait. John knew from experience that Moriarty could go months undetected, and then appearing without warning in the midst of devastation.

_Bring Rose – Mrs Hudson making threats. S_

John huffed with slight amusement as he saw the next text. Sherlock knew John wouldn’t leave Rose with a sitter, even if he had someone to watch her. He had a hard enough time putting Rose to sleep in her own room and going to his bed just down the hall, never mind leaving her with someone else for an hour or two.

John shoved the mobile phone into his pocket as he stood, wiping away some of the tiredness in his eyes. Rose woke multiple times through the night for feedings or changing, which John didn’t actually mind, as it gave him a legitimate excuse for not being able to sleep.

“All right, Rosie,” John said, as she started to whimper when he picked her up. “Shh.”

John had mostly stopped thinking he was going to break her every time he carried her, but he was still gentle rubbing her back as she huffed for air and worked out whether she wanted to cry or not.

“We’re just going to investigate things at Baker Street,” John told her, carefully going up the stairs to pack a bag for her. “Mummy will be amused we’re starting you early.”

Three weeks on and Mary’s name still brought a fresh ache to him, but John was grateful that he was also starting to feel tendrils of warmth when he talked about Mary to their daughter.

 


	2. Chapter 2

“Oh, John!” Mrs Hudson called, fairly beaming at him as he walked into the front hallway. “It’s so lovely you could come.”

“Didn’t think I had much of a choice,” John said, though he had a warm smile for her. It was a rather wasted effort though, as she was ignoring him in favour of looking at Rose in the car seat.

“I think she needs a change,” John said, raising a brow at the face scrunching Rose was doing. “Would you like to have tea upstairs, maybe?”

“Oh yes,” Mrs Hudson said, straightening back up. “I’ll bring it along in a few moments. You go on up first and get her sorted.”

“Right,” John said, smiling again. She giggled at Rose once more and then turned for her own flat, allowing John to make his way upstairs.

When John entered the living room he was not surprised in the least to find that Sherlock was using the wall as a pin board again. There were several pictures of Moriarty pinned up, some from the rooftop of Barts that John had never seen before, and a few crossed out articles of random crimes that had seemingly no connection.

“So, you said you had new intel?” John asked, placing Rose’s car seat on the dining table, out of Sherlock’s way.

“Hmm?” Sherlock replied, flopping down onto the couch and leaning forward to check something on his laptop. He was wearing his crimson coloured dressing gown over a white dress shirt and trousers, and John’s eyes immediately followed down the open hem of the gown to the spot where Sherlock had been shot all those months ago.

“Moriarty,” John repeated, his fingers tapping lightly on the handle of the car seat, rocking it slightly. “It’s been a month and a half, I’d think he’d have at least texted you by now.”

“Yes,” Sherlock murmured, still staring at the computer screen. John focused his attention on releasing Rose from the confines of the car seat, as he knew when Mrs Hudson came up that she’d want to hold the baby. He was tired though, and his fingers fumbled the buckles as he tried to be gentle with them.

“Someone must have been paid off to display that message,” Sherlock said, typing away at the computer. “He doesn’t use codes or tricks for these things, just money.”

John lifted Rose up and put her against his shoulder, with her head cradled in his neck.

“Should be easy to trace then, shouldn't it?” John asked, yawning. He walked over to the wall full of pinned pictures and stared at them. “Channels are run by different companies, so there'd have to be more than one.”

“Unless it went through the emergency broadcast system,” Sherlock corrected, not looking up from his screen.

John turned to nod his agreement, but his mouth abruptly shut as he glanced across the room. On the floor between the fireplace and Sherlock's chair was a small wicker Moses basket, with a plain white blanket on top and a small, pale yellow stuffed giraffe peeking over the edge.

“Argh,” Sherlock said, slamming shut the laptop lid and springing up from the couch. John flinched, but he was far away enough that Sherlock didn't bump into him and Rose. “No security breaches noted in the emergency system.”

“And how do you know that?” John asked, still eyeing the basket with curiosity. There were scuff marks on the bottom edge of the basket, and while the blanket looked new, the basket itself clearly wasn't.

“None reported within the internal email system,” Sherlock explained, waving his hand impatiently.

“Hoo hoo!” Mrs Hudson called, stepping into the room with a tea tray in her hand. She completely ignored Sherlock's pacing around, and focused entirely on John and Rose. “Still just the milk in your tea, John?”

“Yeah, thanks,” John said, glaring at his former flatmate. “Sherlock, did you break into their secure email system to check that?”

John wasn't really surprised when Sherlock didn't answer, which John took to mean that yes, he had. John was too tired to admonish him though, and instead waited as Mrs Hudson settled herself on the couch.

“She might be a bit fussy,” John warned, passing Rose over. Mrs Hudson cuddled her close and John felt his attention rexlaxing a bit as he was able to take his complete focus off of Rose.

“Oh she’s lovely, John,” Mrs Hudson said, cooing softly at Rose as the baby blinked lazily up at her. John had hazy memories of his own Gran, a woman who had been very old with very white hair, slightly befuddled but always happy to see John and Harry and offer them mint sweets. Mrs Hudson wasn’t one for sweets so much, but John hoped that Rose would be spoiled with her homemade biscuits and tarts as she grew up.

“I see your mother’s found your old basket, Sherlock. Why didn’t you tell me she was here?”

John turned to glance at the basket again, looking to see if he could see anything identifying on it.

“That was Sherlock’s?”

“Mmhmm, I think so,” Mrs Hudson said, giving John a nod. “I should clean out the extra room upstairs for you too, heavens knows what I’ll find up there.”

“For me?” John repeated, a little confused. “I have my own house…”

“Well of course. But she’ll need somewhere to sleep when she’s here, away from him and his noise,” Mrs Hudson said, and the smile she gave John was nothing short of amusedly smug.

John’s mouth opened, but the only response he had for that was an unsure ‘ah’.

“Oh, timing!” Sherlock blurted, startling John and Mrs Hudson. “How long was my plane in the air before Mycroft saw the message?”

John blinked a few times as he tried to think. That particular day had been a clusterfuck of emotions that John didn’t much like to remember. “I’m not sure. Not longer than three minutes.”

“So someone was watching closely enough to wait until the plane had just taken off, before airing the message.”

“Or just before hand,” John said, with a small shrug. “I doubt Mycroft was watching TV in the car as his brother was leaving to…an uncertain assignment.”

Sherlock gave him a sharp look at that, and John glared right back. He wasn’t stupid, and knew that assignment would have been fatal.

“They would have needed time for him to have been told. So, was it a malevolent or benevolent action?” John asked. On the couch Mrs Hudson was rocking Rose gently and singing to her in a soft voice, and so John sat down heavily in his armchair.

“Could have been either,” Sherlock mused. “Private air field, few opportunities for surveillance, perhaps it was someone there.”

“One of Mycroft’s agents?” John asked. Sherlock gave him the smallest hum of agreement as he held an aerial photograph of the airfield up and started studying it. John figured he was calculating all possible surveillance points of the field, and so with Sherlock busy and Mrs Hudson holding Rose, he allowed himself to close his eyes for a moment.

...

John woke with a start, feeling warmth from a blanket he assumed Mrs Hudson had draped over him, and listening to the light hum of a deep voice not far from him. It took a few seconds to realise that it was Sherlock humming, as though the man had strong musical talent, John had never heard him hum.

“Miss Watson, if you please,” Sherlock murmured, gently grasping at her flailing wrist. Her fingers were flicking open and closed at random, and he was having a difficult time keeping what looked to be a thin sewing tape measure at her wrist.

John didn’t move from his seat, but instead continued to observe the two. The nappy changing mat he’d brought over had been set up on the dining table, and there was a thick open file on the other side of Rose’s head, that looked vaguely like the patient folders John had at his practice. Sherlock was holding the measuring tape loosely in one hand as he wrote something quickly down in the file.

John watched with curiosity as Sherlock put the tape down, and then grasped Rose’s kicking foot. Somewhere along the line she’d lost her outfit, though John saw the edges of the nappy as Sherlock raised her foot to a…

“Are you fingerprinting my daughter?” John asked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he sat up in the chair.

“No,” Sherlock said, carefully pressing her foot to a piece of cardstock. “As a doctor, you should most certainly know that these are her feet.”

John pinched the bridge of his nose.

“ _Why_ are you taking prints?”

“To ensure a complete record,” Sherlock answered, without managing to explain things any clearer to John.

“Right, well, when you’re finished, make sure you get all the ink off. We’re going soon and it’s been a while since I had to get ink out of clothing.”

“Pressing engagement?” Sherlock asked, clipping the last vowel loudly as he finished off the last footprint. Rosie was staring at him, but John suspected that she’d spend a lot of her young life doing that.

“No,” John told him, feeling his defences rise.

“So you don’t need to go _soon_ ,” Sherlock clarified, using some wipes to get rid of the ink on Rose’s foot.

“Don’t, Sherlock,” John ordered, flexing his fingers against the side of his leg. “Routine is good...”

“Oh to hell with routine,” Sherlock interrupted. “You function best with split second decisions.”

“Are you saying I'm not functioning well?” John asked, his tone dark. Seconds later he realised that he was leaving himself open for a potentially harsh round of deductions.

“Clearly not. You fell asleep here after just ten minutes, your clothing is mismatched as you likely just grabbed whatever was on top out of the drawer, you have stubble that you missed on the right side of your face, and your watch is on upside down,” Sherlock said, picking Rose up and inspecting her to make sure no ink ended up on her clothing.

John's eyes shot to his wrist and he scowled at his upside down watch.

“We are both getting into a routine,” John said, almost in a growl. “It has been difficult without Mary, far more difficult than I thought, and I do appreciate your help, but I just need time.”

Sherlock watched him impassively as John pointed with a steady hand to make his points. He didn't look cowed any more than he had on the night when he'd told John why everyone around him was a psychopath. He was holding Rose to the centre of his chest, his hands protectively covering her entire back, and John would have softened at the sight but he was feeling far too defensive to do so.

“Is this what you were like after I left?” Sherlock finally asked.

“Jesus christ,” John exhaled. “Yes. No. You were worse.”

“So come back here,” Sherlock told him, his finger absently rubbing across Rose's back. “At the very least there will be people here to help with...baby things.”

“Sherlock, right now I can't leave the house,” John slowly said, his patience wearing thin. He stepped toward Sherlock and carefully started to transfer Rose over into his own hands. “I don't want to.”

“It’s not even your house,” Sherlock argued, his hands slipping carefully out from under John's.

“Yes, it is,” John snapped. Rose blinked up at him, but didn't seem to be too annoyed that he and Sherlock were speaking harshly.

“Sentiment?”

“Yes. Which I now know you definitely understand, so leave off, ta very much.”

“John,” Sherlock started, as John moved to put Rose in her car seat.

“No,” John said. “This is. Look. I know you're here, but I can't come back to Baker Street. Not until I figure this out.”

He waved helplessly between himself and Rose, willing his eyes not to look at Sherlock, who was undoubtably giving him a wounded, confused look.

“I'll see you tomorrow,” John finally said, putting his coat on. “I need your help with something there.”

Sherlock gave him a quick nod, and with shoulders drawn inward, John picked up Rosie to head out again.

 


	3. Chapter 3

_“Do you have any plans for today?”_

_Mary’s question was asked almost blandly, spoken more into her tea mug than at John, and if John hadn’t seen her shoot a 50p coin out of the air the night before he would never have guessed he was being interrogated by an assassin._

_“No,” John answered, adding a splash more milk to his oatmeal. Living with Sherlock had taught him never to expand on things unless absolutely necessary, and at the moment John didn’t feel particularly inclined to trust Mary in the least._

_Silence fell over the kitchen as John ate his breakfast, though even then it was still noisy. The fridge hummed softly, the clock on the windowsill over the sink ticked, Mary’s fingers drummed against her mug, and the kettle gave a resounding click that echoed slightly through the room. It always clicked after the water had boiled at least ten minutes earlier, and John had yet to figure out the cause._

_“I’m going out,” John finally told her, standing up with his dishes. “Just, out.”_

_“To the hospital,” Mary said, watching him as she leaned against the worktop._

_“Of course to the bloody hospital,” John snapped, keeping his voice low even though his control over his anger was starting to slip. The dishes slipped into the sink with a clatter and he exhaled heavily, his fingers clenched on the worktop edge._

_He heard Mary’s mug clunk down rather strongly against the kitchen table, but John didn’t turn._

_“I didn’t draw him out,” she said, raising her tone at the end of the statement, as if preparing for a row._

_“Not this time,” John answered, shaking his head as he turned to look at her. “But Sherlock Holmes doesn’t act unless he is certain he’s figured out most of the facts, so he must have felt threatened enough to leave right away.”_

_Mary didn’t say anything further, but John saw the look of guilt on her face as her gaze flickered down to the floor and he nodded once, before stalking out of the room._

…

John jerked awake at the sound of music playing, his muscles rigid and his arms rising in a defensive pose. The room was lighter than it had been before he’d fallen asleep, and his heart skipped a second before recognising that the dark shadow of a man standing over Rosie in her playpen was Sherlock.

“Did you break in?” John asked, yawning as he stood and stretched.  Sherlock was holding a small otter toy over Rose, who was kicking madly as she looked at it.

“I have a key,” Sherlock told him, slowly moving the otter above the playpen, back and forth, up and down. John smiled as he watched Rose track it. “And you requested help.”

“I did,” John said. “But not with Rosie. Though I have to admit, I didn’t think you’d find her so interesting.”

Sherlock spent another thirty seconds moving the otter toy over Rose’s air space, before standing straight up and smirking at John.

“She needs changed.”

“Thanks,” John said, rolling his eyes. Rose was blowing small spit bubbles, and John smacked his lips at her as he leant over the playpen to pick her up. “You will have to do this at one point.”

“If you came back to the flat, Mrs Hudson would do it,” Sherlock said. He’d moved to the couch and was looking at the police files that John had left out on the coffee table.

“I think Mary’s gun is still in the house,” John announced instead, changing the subject rather clumsily.

John didn’t look up from changing Rose’s nappy, and he didn’t hear Sherlock move, but he knew Sherlock was listening to him.

“The same bullet that was in your chest matched the ballistics for several other murders, so I’d like to find it and get rid of it,” John continued, reaching for some baby powder. “Wouldn’t do to have the gun that was used in your attempted murder in my possession. Though I’m sure some people would understand.”

“Funny,” Sherlock told him, frowning at John’s notes. “A rookie mistake, keeping the gun.”

“So was wearing her regular perfume,” John said, shrugging. He’d finished with the change, and put the otter toy back in the playpen near Rosie. Her depth perception wasn’t quite calibrated right, and she was wriggling as she waved her arms at it.

“Quite,” Sherlock said, glancing around the room as if he were checking for hidden compartments for the gun. “You’ll need to come to Baker Street Thursday afternoon.”

Rose kicked at John’s tickling fingers as he looked up in puzzlement.

“New case?”

“No,” Sherlock said, drumming his fingers on the coffee table. “Distant cousin of mine will be in town. He’s interested in buying this house.”

John took a deep, steadying breath and pursed his lips together.

“I haven’t decided to sell the house.”

“You almost have. And it’s fairly evident how much you hate the suburbs,” Sherlock said, leaning forward and putting his hands in front of his face in his regular thinking pose.

“I don’t,” John started, twisted his head up slightly as he resisted the urge to throw something at Sherlock. “This is my house, and I don’t want to leave it yet.”

“Why?” Sherlock asked, shrugging his shoulders almost flippantly.

John’s fingers clenched and unclenched against his left thigh as he stared at his friend. John was fairly certain that Sherlock’s sheer bloody-mindedness could start small land wars.

“It’s the one thing that Mary and I had and for a while, for a few months, we were happy here. And this is where we wanted to raise our daughter, away from the crime and danger of London.”

“You live for that danger,” Sherlock pointed out, in the same tone he’d used when he told John that Mary hated his moustache as well. “And I’d hardly call a house with an assassin and a soldier with an adrenaline addiction safe.”

“Sherlock,” John started, stepping toward his friend and pointing his finger warningly. “Leave it.”

“John,” Sherlock said, ignoring John’s warning completely. “Research has shown that the period of grief is prolonged when the subject is surrounded…”

“I’m not grieving,” John fairly growled, shutting Sherlock up. In the playpen Rose was making little noises as she clutched the stuffed otter.

“There were two Marys,” John continued, his voice low and controlled. “And I miss the one I fell in love with, that worked late nights with me and had takeaway at midnight and made me smile after you died. That’s the one I see when I walk around here, and I’m making peace with the fact that she’s gone. But every time I’m at Baker Street, I remember the Mary that _lied_. The one who had no past, who shot my best friend–”

John broke off, shaking his head to clear his voice. Sherlock remained blissfully quiet.

“And when I’m at the flat I feel guilty for feeling a modicum of relief that my wife is dead. That she can’t double cross me again.”

“I’m not sure she was trying to cross you,” Sherlock said, staring at John intently. “Just protect what she had.”

“Oh, and you’d know, wouldn’t you?” John snapped. “She tried to kill you, Sherlock. And I’m not talking about at Magnussen’s office. She brought her gun to confront you at Leinster Gardens and she would have killed you then. And now my little girl is going to grow up without her mother, and I feel _relieved_. So does that make me the psychopath this time?”

“You forgave her,” Sherlock slowly said. “At Christmas.”

John shook his head with a quick, harsh twist. His breath came out in little bursts of angry air through his nose as he tried to think of how to get his point through to Sherlock.

“She was pregnant with my child. And she shot you to keep our relationship safe. I had to forgive her, I couldn’t imagine what she’d do to the baby if she thought I’d leave her.”

“It was fairly clear that her motives were to keep you,” Sherlock said, standing up. Rose was starting to whimper in the playpen and he had lowered his voice.

“Were they?” John asked, rubbing his forehead to release some of the tension. “The only reason she didn’t see you as a threat is because I’ve been fairly adamant on the whole not being a homosexual thing. And now you want me to go back to Baker Street, with a baby. Christ.”

“Oh for god’s sake, what now?” Sherlock said, huffing out his breath in irritation. “It makes far more sense for you to live there than out here. You have no family other than your sister, who is in the city, and Mrs Hudson keeps badgering to babysit. Or are you afraid that people will _talk_?”

Sherlock had moved over toward the kitchen, where a black baby carrier was hanging over the back of a chair. He seemed to be inspecting it, though John couldn’t tell if he was actually curious about how it worked, or just wanted something to do with his hands.

“People will always talk, Sherlock,” John told him, stepping up to the playpen to pick up and placate Rose. “So no, I’m not afraid of that. I’m afraid that if I move back in with you, that Rosie will grow up to be just like me.”

John turned away as he bounced Rose gently in his arms. There were pictures of him and Mary on the mantelpiece, and John’s eyes lost a bit of focus as he stared at them and moved his fingertips softly through Rose’s hair. John had six pictures of Mary holding Rose, all on his mobile phone, and that was all there would be of his daughter and wife together.

Sherlock spoke again, as John blinked back the prickly feeling from the corners of his eyes.

“Her gun will be in a place easily accessible from where she slept, likely with some sort of bug-out bag. She would have been prepared for intruders, or the necessity to disappear in the middle of the night.”

“Fantastic,” John replied, in the dullest tone he could manage.

...

“So where is the little one?” Greg asked, taking the drink John handed him. His face was a bit scruffy and John could see fresh cuts on his hand, likely from recent outdoor work on a case, but his eyes were bright and he was in a good mood.

“Sherlock took her to the store to buy more tea,” John said, edging around the coffee table before dropping down onto the couch. There were a few small baby blankets on the couch next to John, along with a bottle and the baby monitor receiver on the coffee table. All of John’s pilfered police paperwork had been put away quickly, within five minutes of Greg’s text warning of a visit.

“And you trusted him to do that?” Greg asked, sounding rather surprised.

“It’s an experiment,” John explained. “He wants to see if he can get other people to help with his shopping, as he is a single man with a baby.”

Greg laughed and John smiled sheepishly, feeling slightly bad that he lied so often to Greg. He wasn’t in the mood to explain that he and Sherlock had thrown a row over moving back to Baker Street though.

“That, and I needed time to take a shower. Sherlock’s…he’ll protect Rose. When he gives his word, he’s solid.”

Greg nodded in consideration, and took a sip of whiskey.

“I doubt he’ll remember to bring back most of what I asked, though,” John added.

“Likely not,” Greg agreed.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out his notebook, flipping it open with a very slightly hopeful look on his face. “As he isn’t here now, though, do you have anything else to say on his case?”

John kept his expression carefully blank as he casually crossed his legs.

“The shooting? No.”

“John.”

“Nothing has changed from when you last asked,” John said. “I wasn’t in the room when Sherlock was shot. I only ran upstairs afterward, and the shooter was gone by then.”

Greg looked frustrated, but not all together unsurprised. He flicked the notebook closed again, but didn’t put it away.

“I know that you know more than what you’re saying,” he finally muttered. “And don’t think I don’t know that you two break the law on a regular basis.”

“Break the law?” John asked, trying for innocent and mostly failing.

“Two people knocked unconscious, Sherlock shot by an invisible assassin, Magnussen pistol-whipped.  A missed dinner engagement for Magnussen, across London? You weren’t there by invitation, John,” Greg said, draining his glass.

John shrugged in consideration.

“We were in the middle of negotiations.”  

Before Greg could question that, the front door creaked open. John immediately looked toward the hall, giving a small smile as he saw Sherlock walk in. He had a bag in each hand, both relatively full, and nestled against the collar of his Belstaf coat was a wee knitted red cap.

“She wasn’t any trouble?” John asked, standing up. Greg appeared to be stuck in his seat, struck by either the sight of Sherlock acting so domesticated, or the baby in a fleece covered carrier strapped to him.

“She is a month old, John. There is very little trouble she can get into,” Sherlock said, dumping the bags on the table. “Not entirely certain what was purchased. There seemed to be a general consensus that I needed assistance, despite having a physical list to consult.”

Sherlock gently started to unzip the fleece cover, revealing Rose in the baby carrier.

“To be honest, I’m having trouble picturing you shopping for groceries,” Greg said. He smirked when Sherlock threw him a petulant look.

“Sherlock,” John said, pawing through the grocery bags on the table. “You forgot half of what was on the list.”

“No,” Sherlock said, unclipping the carrier straps and placing the whole contraption on the table. Rose whimpered as she was pulled away from Sherlock’s body heat, and started to cry as he picked her up again. “I will repeat the experiment tomorrow and purchase the rest.”

“C’mere, Rosie,” John said, rolling his eyes at Sherlock as he reached for the baby.

“Shouldn’t you be focusing on Moriarty, instead of baby experiments?” Greg asked, watching John carry Rose to the kitchen.

“I assure you, Geo…Greg, I have the attention span for both,” Sherlock informed him, with a slightly arrogant nod. “Currently waiting on information, which I cannot rush.”

“So am I,” Greg said, crossing his arms. John was fiddling with a baby bottle warmer in the kitchen, and Greg knew he could hear every word of the conversation. “And I’m waiting, Sherlock, for the information you’re withholding on your attempted assassination.”

“Sorry, Detective Inspector,” Sherlock said, his smile turning into a rather smug grin. “I’m afraid it’s all still a bit of a blur. And I’m terribly busy right now you know, must hunt down Moriarty. Goodbye, John!”

“What?” John said, looking up from Rose’s feeding just in time to see Sherlock’s coat twirl as the man left the house.

Greg was glaring at the door Sherlock had left through, though he didn’t look that surprised.

“He knows who shot him,” Greg finally said, pointing at the door as John walked back into the sitting room.

“’Course he does,” John said. “Do you want to hold her?”

“John,” Greg tried. He held his arms out for Rose, all the while giving John an irritated look. “ _You_ know who shot him. And I could have you brought in.”

“But you wouldn't,” John quietly said, gently passing Rose over as she continued feeding from the bottle. “Because you know that if Sherlock isn't telling you, he's probably taken care of the problem himself.”

Greg huffed a small sigh of both frustration and resignation. “Fair enough.”

“And if you knew too much you might have to arrest one of us,” John continued. “And no one wants that.”

Greg looked sharply up at John, but John had a placid yet determined look on his face that quelled any sort of argument Greg was thinking of using.


	4. Chapter 4

John clipped the baby monitor to the back of his jeans and stepped quietly out of Rose’s room. The house was quiet, save for the hum of the refrigerator that John could hear from the top of the stairs. He closed his eyes and pictured Mary, standing in the same spot that he currently was. Sherlock had suggested that the gun would be within easy reach of Mary in bed, when she’d be woken from sleep and at her most vulnerable. John had to agree, as he didn’t see any use for the gun concealed out in the hall.

He trailed his finger along the wall of the hallway as he walked to the bedroom, where he forced his eyes to scan the room as if he’d never seen it before. Several storage options were the most obvious, and even glancing upward (most people only looked toward the ground when looking to hide something, and John had trained himself out of that bad habit), but he didn’t see any immediate hiding place.

He walked to her side of the bed, laying carefully down on it and staring up at the ceiling. It was the same view that he had from his own side of the bed, but he felt a little off lying there, as if it was still Mary’s spot, and not to be disturbed. _The gun_ , John reminded himself, setting himself back on track.

Staying down on the bed as he was, John let his hand drift down over the side of the bed, and found the wooden edge of the bedframe. As a boy he’d fixed a small false side to his bedside cabinet, to keep Harry out of his allowance stash, but John had already been through Mary’s and it was too small to hide anything. He let his fingers drum on the bedframe as he pondered other places, noticing after a few seconds that the drumming sounded off.

John suddenly realised why Mary had insisted on sleeping on this side of the bed. Left-handed, as he was, it was easy to reach down along the side of the bed, skim her fingers along and…there! A seam in the wood side of the bedframe. John pushed it against the mattress and it soundlessly gave way, folding down to reveal her gun. No extra bullets, though John was willing to bet his life the gun was loaded.

With the silencer still attached, it was somewhat heavier than his gun. Certainly not one to fit in a jacket pocket, but then, Mary had always carried large purses. John then wondered how many times they’d gone out together and she’d brought it along, for whatever reason.

He took a few minutes to inspect the hiding spot, noticing the reinforced steel behind the hollowed out space, to keep the bedframe fully functional. The spring-loaded hinges were well oiled, and the seams of the opening were thin enough that John knew he never would have noticed it, if he’d not been looking for such a hiding space.

John stared dumbly at it, and then put her gun back where he’d found it. It could stay there until the next sleepless night he had, when he could take it out to the Thames and dump it.

…

The next morning was a clear February day that was a bit on the chilly side, but suspiciously bright. John was accustomed to dreary and wet winter days, so as he bundled Rose up into the baby harness carrier, he made a mental note to throw a small umbrella into her diaper bag. They had an appointment at the paediatrician just before noon, and John was giving himself plenty of time to get there, as he was going to take the tube instead of driving.

He’d chosen the tube because it was only a five minute longer journey than driving, and he wouldn’t have to deal with other traffic or fighting for a parking spot. What he hadn’t expected, however, was to run into Ella Thompson on the train.

“Morning, John,” she greeted, sitting next to him with a smile.

“Ah, hi,” John responded. His hand was protectively holding the baby carrier close to him, and he’d spent most of the train ride glaring at people who wanted to get close enough to have a look at Rose.

“Congratulations,” she continued, in a lower voice. John’s reluctance to speak much about his private life had clearly stuck with Ella, as she was quiet enough not to let everyone hear them talking.  “Hope you and Mary are doing well.”

“Mmh,” John mumbled, nodding his head down, looking at Rose.  “I’m all right. Mary died shortly after childbirth.”

Ella inhaled a strong breath, but to her credit, did not make any other sounds or gestures of condolence. To anyone else on the lightly packed car, they looked just like acquaintances catching up.

“I’m so sorry, John,” Ella finally said. “How are you handling things?”

John snorted out a tiny humourless laugh. He reached up and gently tugged Rose’s red hat up a bit, so she could look around a bit more.

“As well as to be expected, I suppose,” John answered. They pulled into a station and John said nothing as people in loud conversations entered their carriage. Rose scrunched her face up, deciding that she didn’t like the noise.

“Sherlock’s not letting me hide away at home, so there is that.”

“Hmm,” Ella said, managing to give John a disproving hum whilst smiling at the baby at the same time.

John was fully aware that Ella disproved of his so-called dependence on Sherlock, but he’d given up trying to prove that it wasn’t unhealthy. He’d proven that to himself by not running back to Baker Street as soon as Sherlock had come back to life, but John didn’t feel he had any need to justify his friendship any more.

“This is our stop,” John said instead, checking his pockets to ensure he had his keys, wallet, and oyster card still on him. He stood up carefully so to not jostle Rose, and said his goodbyes.

Once he’d emerged from the station onto the street, John reflected that Ella was likely wondering what he was going to do now. She’d been initially quite supportive of his and Mary’s relationship, and he’d stopped going to therapy not long after he and Mary had moved in together. But Ella knew that John didn’t do well on his own, and probably figured he’d not be able to live in the house by himself for very long. She also pegged him as one to have trust issues, and John could only imagine what she’d think of the way things had turned out.

_So, as it happens, my wife was an ex-assassin that tried to kill my best friend_ , John thought to himself, stepping into the lift that led up to the doctor’s office. _You know, the one that faked his own death for two years to keep me safe._

Ella would likely have him sectioned, John suspected, and he told Rose that. The empty lift was warm, and she had started to cry from being overheated. Maybe he would make an appointment to speak with Ella anyway, to see if she thought it was beneficial to stay at the house. John knew he was doing so because it was the last real thing he had together with Mary, and if he returned to the flat, he’d feel like he’d lost a large part of that time in his life. He’d certainly felt that way after moving out when Sherlock had died; four months on and he’d had nightmares that he’d hallucinated his entire time with Sherlock Holmes.

“Dr Watson?” the receptionist asked, greeting him as he walked in. The room was full of mothers with various prams, bags, purses, toddler siblings, and stacks of parenting magazines strewn about, with brightly coloured pictures of toys and accessories all over them.

“Yeah, that’s me,” John answered back, feeling very out of place as he stood in his black jacket, with the black baby carrier, and small, neutral coloured shoulder bag. The other mums were eyeing him up, mostly out of curiosity, while the receptionist planted a patronising smile on her face as she took his and Rose’s details down.

John had never wished so much for a text from Sherlock, calling him to a crime scene.

 

_…_

_John twisted in the visitor’s chair in Sherlock’s room, trying to ignore the intercom calls for the cardiac unit in a room down the floor. He had a length of nylon rope in his hands, running through his fingers as he tested himself on the knots he used to use daily in the army._

_He could tell by the beeping on the machine Sherlock was hooked up to that his friend was waking up, but John didn’t say a word as he continued to tie knots._

_“Is this a new kink of yours?” Sherlock asked, his voice gravelly and low with sleep. He moved his leg slightly to the edge of the bed, but John had looped the rope around both Sherlock’s ankle and the bed railing._

_“It’s either this, or I tag you with a tracker,” John told him, finally dropping the rope into his lap._

_“I could easily get out of this,” Sherlock said, scoffing as he raised the bed into a sitting position._

_John sat back in the visitor’s chair and raised his eyebrow questioningly._

_“Really. You can bend forward that much?” He gestured to the knots, which were tied close to Sherlock’s ankle. The answering grimace he received from Sherlock was enough that John smirked humourlessly._

_“Why should I trust her?”_

_Sherlock narrowed his eyes at John, and tried to shift into a more comfortable sitting position._

_“Where’s the memory stick?”_

_“You haven’t read it,” John countered, crossing his arms. “So you tell me why I should trust her. Why you do.”_

_Sherlock nearly rolled his eyes, but John remained still, glaring at him._

_“She saved my life,” Sherlock started._

_“No she didn’t,” John growled. “She shot you.”_

_“And rang for an ambulance,” Sherlock added, resting his head back on the pillow and staring up at the ceiling. “We’ve been over this.”_

_“Then why did she bring a gun to find you last night?” John asked._

_Sherlock fiddled with the bed control further, before answering._

_“Read the files on her memory stick.”_

 

….

John blinked awake early in the morning, coming to a slow awareness as the sound of rain hitting the window permeated his head, along with the realisation that he was an idiot.

He had, in a fit of chivalry, not read the memory stick Mary had given him. He was fairly certain it wasn’t the only copy of that information though – if it even contained correct information in the first place– as Mary had gone out to confront Sherlock that night and John knew that she'd only give up the information she wanted him to see.

John hoped that once he'd found out more information, found out some of her past, he'd be able to let go of the stranglehold on the house that he had. John wasn't a huge fan of the suburbs, and he'd been bored of it not long after moving there with Mary. And even though he knew he'd end up back at Baker Street, where he had his close knit group of friends close by, John didn't feel he was justified leaving the home he and Mary had built. Not yet.

Staring up at the plaster patterns on the ceiling, John wondered what Mary had done that she thought he'd find so repulsive. A revengeful act in defence of her family? John had certainly crossed lines to protect Sherlock. Or maybe she'd just liked the money enough to stray from legal work. The house was completely paid for, and though Mary hadn’t had a credible explanation for having that amount of money, John had never asked.

Focusing on a stain on the ceiling in the corner of the room, John frowned at it and blinked. Something had seemed a bit off in Rose's room, though John had never placed what was bothering him. Now he could, and also suspected he'd find something incriminating behind it.

Rose's nursery had been something that Mary had mostly worked on, and when John stepped back in there, he looked up toward the ceiling and confirmed that there was a smoke alarm in the corner of the room. It was a silly place for an alarm, as there was a working one at the top of the stairs and alarms weren’t usually placed deep in a bedroom corner.

As quietly as he could, as it was six am and Rose was sleeping, John brought in a stepladder from behind his bedroom door and climbed up on it. He removed the cover of the alarm, not surprised to find that no alarm parts within, but instead a hole to the ceiling. John shone a pen torch in the hole, and found a thin-ish poster tube. John held it tightly in his hands, his vision narrowed on the A.G.R.A. written in permanent marker on the tube lid.

John brought it down to the kitchen, biting his lower lip as he dumped out the contents. Short breaths were coming out of his nose, and it took a conscious effort for him not to crumple the papers upon first sight.

A list of names that matched the ballistic report John had. Photographs of meeting places. Bank deposit slips, all from numbered accounts. Login information for the National Weather Alert system, and a collection of photographs of Moriarty, including the one that had ended up broadcast.

John scratched his forehead as he looked at the collection of evidence before him, feeling slightly relieved and at the same time, irritated. This was what Mary had shot Sherlock for? No, he didn’t agree with the assassinations, but John had read the files on every single victim, and they’d all been criminals of some sort. He couldn’t really judge anyway, being a murderer himself. And he knew that Sherlock would recognise Mary’s work faking Moriarty’s return to keep Sherlock in England as what it was – an IOU for Sherlock taking care of Magnussen.

Shaking his head and deciding to take the whole tube to Sherlock for perusal, John picked it up and glanced inside. He’d not noticed the thin blue papers rolled tightly up against the inside, and it took a few careful minutes to pry them out without damaging them. They were a scaled copy of original blueprints that took John a minute to place, and when he did, he balled his hand into a fist and slammed it into the table top.

A public pool in London, the very same pool that John and Sherlock had nearly been blown to bits in four years earlier.

“For Christ's sake, Mary,” John breathed, leaning heavily against the table. There was a drawn circle on the roof of the shallow end of the pool, putting her as one of the snipers that had sights on John, and John roughly sucked back air as her words ran through his head. _Because you won’t love me when you’ve finished_.

In an instant the feeling in the house shifted, and John’s eyes darted to the corners of the room where the shadows seemed just that much darker. This was no longer the home that he and Mary had built, but instead a battleground of sorts. His mind raced as his inner voice flung questions at him like a drill sergeant. When had Mary stopped working for Moriarty? Or had she not actually stopped? Had she only dated John as part of a job?

He shuffled quickly through the bundle again, re-reading scraps of papers relating to old freelance jobs, but nothing else definitive to link her to Moriarty. Mary had certainly gone rogue from the CIA, if that’s even who she’d originally worked for, and sometime between nearly killing them at the pool and Sherlock’s faked death, she’d fallen for John.

He sank heavily onto the wooden kitchen chair, holding his head in his hands as he rested his elbows on the table. Sherlock was absolutely right; he couldn’t seem to stop picking psychopaths in his life.

Turning his back to the tube and the papers and photographs, John walked to the sitting room and stared out the window at the dull street he lived on. He and Rose; his little family. He missed Mary still, the funny, cute woman he’d fallen in love with, but right now he could only feel a sense of betrayal with her name, much like in the weeks after finding out she’d shot Sherlock, when he couldn’t say _Mary_ without scowling.

An hour later, John sat at the kitchen table with Rose cradled in his arm, freshly showered and with a hot cup of tea in front of him. He twisted the mobile phone in his hand, tapping the corner of it on the table for each rotation. His eyes weren’t fully focused on it, so it was rather blurry as he stared and reviewed the decision he’d made.

_Rooms still available? Rose will need her own. – JW_

It was just half seven in the morning, and John knew it was entirely possible that Sherlock was still fast asleep. Even still, he remained at the table with his mobile in his hand, staring around the kitchen. Rose was quiet, seemingly content to lay still and stare up at him.

“I hope you are a better judge of character than I am,” John told her, catching her dark blue staring eyes.

John put the phone down and reached up to smooth back the light hair on Rose’s forehead, causing her to yawn. The mobile buzzed loudly on the table a moment later, and John glanced up to read the message.

_Mrs Hudson is insisting on baby proofing. S_

John smiled, debating whether Sherlock had gone downstairs to wake Mrs Hudson up and ask, or, more likely, if he’d mentioned it before and was waiting for John to say anything about moving back.

_I insist on it as well – JW_

John put the phone back on the table and shifted Rose, so she was upright with her head on his shoulder.

“You won’t remember this house,” John said, feeling a pang of regret that he’d be leaving it. “But it was never really ours anyway.”

He rubbed his fingers up and down along Rose’s back, and she squirmed against his chest. He’d have to bring the tube of papers over later, and John wondered for a moment if Sherlock wouldn’t be disappointed that Moriarty hadn’t really returned. In a way he knew that Sherlock wouldn’t be, as ‘the game’ with Moriarty had ceased to be fun long before Sherlock had taken his fall from the rooftop of Bart’s. Just after a group of assassins and an insane psychopath had tried to blow them apart in a pool, actually.

The mobile buzzed again.

_Welcome home, then. S_

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I have very little knowledge of guns. Let's pretend Mary's gun was high calibre.


End file.
